Description

BOOKS MAIL OUT APRIL 7th

Cardona’s poetry collection, Amapolasong, is a low-riding Chicano song sweeping the streets of the depths of the readers’ memories, a sentimental soul ballad, a slow procession of titillating sounds recounting childhood heartache in the chicano tradition of using humor. Amapolasong conjures a fry-cook father’s history and links it to Fernando Pessoa, or the neighborhood’s solitario to a bookish, lonely boy; This is a collection deeply focused on sound, a true treat to the ear.

“It’s a reason for celebration! A new book by our hero! Jacinto Jesús Cardona’s work goes straight to the soul, penetrates chatter, clarifies memory, air, hope and precious humanity.”

 —NAOMI SHIHAB NYE, Everything Comes Next: Collected and New Poems, Cast Away: Poems for Our Time, The Tiny Journalist

“Amapolasong makes me want to have libro breath, breath made from reading, saying, and singing the jaunty, wry and wise Star-Spangled Spanglish captured by poeta, Jacinto Jesús Cardona. These pages are a warm and uplifting Chicano embrace offered by the unique and singular lexicon of this true poeta de la gente. Cardona delivers a lyrical memoir novella set as histories and testimonios essential to understand the region of South Texas, filled with characters like the Number One Small-Town Fry Cook, Don Anguiano, el mayor piscador, and the poet himself appearing in a number of poems, as a teenage bookish bato who struggles with baseball, but not with his khakis, his joyful curiosity, or his sparkling spinners. This is a book that opens the door the magical voice-world unique to the language of our bilingual people, and its hard truths are hard-won with so much tenderness for a people and so much music in its tenderness. Lleno de encantos, these poems will keep readers of all ages inspired and wondering what magical word-paquete will star-spangle-sparkle up the next line. This word-mundo is a creative festival of poems that forms an añil bath for anyone needing a thought-cleanse from too much of today’s muck and mugrero.”

 —NATALIA TREVIÑO, VirginX

“Amapolasong is a juicy linguistic experience. Wondrous. These poems are succulent. They quench the reader’s soul in these terribly parched American times.”

—LORI MARIE CARLSON-HIJUELOS, Cool Salsa, A Path to the World: Becoming You